You win one World Series and suddenly everyone loves you.
Ken Williams just swapped the biggest knucklehead on his roster for one of the two or three best bench players in the major leagues. Maybe the best bench player. This wasn't the biggest trade at the winter meetings, but it might have been the best trade, no matter how much of Marte's salary the White Sox agreed to pay.
Even notorious White Sox antagonist Joe Sheehan gets in on the praise of the deal.
shamah (DC): What do you think of the Marte/Macowiack deal? I think it's another unheralded deal for Kenny Williams--he gives up an underachieving reliever who was in Ozzie's doghouse and wasn't getting any PT, for a really useful ulility guy who carries some stick and can play everywhere on the field.
I'd almost rather Sheehan have hated the deal. After all, this was the guy who predicted the Sox to have 71 wins in '05.
Joe Sheehan: Mackowiak becomes the best bench player they have, and a very useful cog on a heavily right-handed team that doesn't have a ton of lefty sock, Thome aside. The fact that Marte wasn't ever going to be trusted with a real role again essentially makes it a free deal.
It's not a bad move for the Pirates, either. They actually have a sweet little bullpen, useful for protecting 3-2 deficits.
This doesn't require it's own thread, but is worth noting nonetheless. Tadahito Iguchi was officially named to Japan's WBC team on Friday. He joins fellow White Sox Freddy Garcia (Venezuela) and Mark Buehrle (USA) representing their home country in the WBC.